New four-year contracts in place for Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski

Ideally, he said earlier this week, he’d have new contracts for Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski before the draft and both players now have new four-year deals.

Neither contract is front-end loaded and Marleau will earn $6.9 milion per season while Pavelski is making $4 million per season.

Marleau would have become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and Pavelski would have been a restricted free agent. Suffice to say both could have earned more on the open market if things reached that point.

The contracts within Wilson’s “team-building” structure.

More later.

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David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

Sorry if there’s any confusion, but the new contracts for Marleau and Pavelski are NOT front-end loaded.

DP

Emerson

Awesome I’m loving it, Patty and Pavs was worried for a bit there bout patty till nabby got the boot. Little Joe your my fave keep it up! Thanks David for keeping us so well informed. This blog rocks!

Emerson

Off topic but I think Danny B should be wearing the “C” this season.

Tom

I’ve got misgivings about Marleau, but overall think this is the right thing to do. Misgivings aside, what’s out there for first-rate D-men? Sharks could use some speed, but d-men are a real need.

And w/ Buffy gone from Chi (yeah, he wasn’t one of their “must-keep” guys, but he came up big in the playoffs), seems like there’s some cracks in the “dynasty.”

Ah, the salary cap – the great equalizer! Chi loses Buffy, the Sharks lose Nabby. I think the Hawks will miss Buffy more than the Sharks will miss Nabby. Guys who can dominate the corners and keep puck control don’t come around everyday – it’s the dirty work that speedy teams like the Hawks need.

DP, hope you didn’t think you were getting the summer off. Thanks for the info.

GP

Thanks for the clarification DP.

PlayingD

#43 – You must not have seen the Getzlaf vs Ryan skit. That was funny. “Words that rhyme with duck” was hilarious.

The video is on the nhl.com website. Anyone who hasn’t seen it, should go there and watch.

Is Ortmeyer a UFA too? If so, has anything been mentioned about him coming back?

Tano

it means that they get paid more in the first year, a little less in the second a little less in the third, etc. Diminishing pay as the years pass by.

GP

Doh! I know why! I failed to read the word “Neither!” in “Neither contract.”

CoastalLiving

jutout @ 49:

If you read the comments, people there are skeptical. Article cites no source. This Bleacher Report place seems to be going all out to become big out of nowhere (partnering with SFGate) but I don’t think they actually have much in terms of writing talent or people with inside connections. One of the articles on SFGate in Feb or March asserted that the Giants were “considered by many to be the favorite to win the NL West”. No word on who these “many” were.

jutout

@ CoastalLiving…

Thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated.

tony

Marleau will be in his prime for the duration of his contract, so only a f’n idiot or hater would have any issues with his signing. The guy wants to be a Shark and took less than he could’ve gotten elsewhere to do so.

Jared re Heater renegotiating::
The CBA forbids renegotiating contracts. Why do you think GMs buy out some contracts and bury others in the AHL?

Spooky re front-loading:
To add to Tano’s note, the salaries go down over the years but for cap purposes they are averaged over the whole length of the contract. Sometimes the expectation or unwritten understanding is that the player retires before the end of the contract, which costs the GM less. The player gets most of the money and the team gets out of the contract early.

Jeremy6411111

David,

A break from the Sharks propaganda please?

Pavelski is being paid more than Zach Parise, Johan Franzen, Versteeg – who has a much higher ceiling, and the list goes on. Kessler, who has more points than Pavelski over the last three seasons, is getting paid 5 mil per year, and he is overpaid, and that is the highest Pavelski could possibly hope for if he was a UFA, except, David, you’re forgetting that Pavelski is an RFA, not a UFA. There is no open market for Pavelski. If a team were to offer him more than 4 mil per annum… here are the stats.

For offer sheets between $3,923,437 – $5,231,249, the compensation is a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round pick.

So what you’re saying is there were just TONS of teams out there who wanted to not only pay Pavelski more than 4 million per year, but who also wanted to lose their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round picks in doing so – correct?

I don’t want to be too hard on you, but you really should know these things. You really should. You need to think before you post. Do some research before kissing Doug Wilson’s ass, especially about things you don’t understand.

As for Marleau, I believe only two players have ever received more than 7 mil per annum in free agency post lockout, and those were Gaborik and Brian Campbell. Campbell’s contract was done as a PR stunt – a contract the Blackhawks would like to get rid of now, and the other was done because 1. Gaborik, when healthy, is a more explosive, team carrying on his back player than Marleau, and 2. Because it was Garth Snow.

So could Pavs have gotten more on the “open market?”

No. Absolutely not. He’s RFA. When you consider that likely the most interest would-be suitor doesn’t even have 1st round picks for two years, it’s just further proof.

Could Marleau have gotten more? Maybe, maybe not. If so, it would have been marginally more. He also could have gotten a longer termed contract, but who’s to say that’s “more” when Marleau may end up getting extension after extension after this contract runs out.

At the end of the day, 4 mil for Pavelski, especially over 4 years, is fair value. It’s not great value. Why should Pavelski, a consistent, two-way 2nd line center with little flash, get paid more than Parise, a flasy, 1st line dynamo, who is also a proficient, if not better, two way player? Why should Pavelski get paid slightly more (basically the same) as Johan Franzen, also a 1st line flashy dynamo who can carry a team much more than Pavelski can?

So compared to some of the competition, the teams the Sharks may need to beat to win the Cup, even Pavelski’s contract isn’t good value, at least not for this next season, barring much more development on his part. But, it’s acceptable. With Marleau, you’re not getting anything near what you’ve paid for. What is he now the 8th, 9th, 10th highest paid forward in the league, and the 20th, 30th + most talented one?

Bad deal. Sharks won’t win a thing next year. They are hoping to bring back the same team as last year, but what Doug Wilson is forgetting is that last year’s team was not good enough. Bringing it back with an inferior goaltender to boot won’t get you anywhere. Why pay Marleau 6.9 mil when you can get Kovy for only slightly more?

Stupidity all around.

same ole same ole

#64- Pavs is scoring at about where marleau was scoring at the same age, and because draft picks are always a gamble, especially after the first 5 or so, he would have had suitors. Why would Wilson gamble at losing Pavs’ for 1st rounders that might suck OR be forced to mess with his budget for signing other FAs. Good job by Wilson, and Pavs signing early shows where his heart is…. Pretty cool

Patty is worth more to the Sharks as a complete player than Kovy, so “trading” the two doesn’t make the Sharks stronger…

I’m sometimes hard on DP, however he is posting from the fly, to get information out, and doing so may not always get facts correct… but then who does when having a conversation? This is a blog, not a news article…

Post your own thoughts daily, and see how quick others will flame on you when/if you get something wrong.

jus sayin’.

Teejay

I’m ecstatic that Patty and Lil Joe will be a part of the team next year, (and for 4 years to come). Good job DW.

Jeremy6411111

66-

What does Pavs scoring “at about” the same rate as Marleau was at the same point in his career have to do with anything?

Assuming that’s even factually correct, which I doubt it is, it’s irrelevant. Stats are just one part of it. Patty and Pavelski are completely different players. Marleau was drafted 2nd overall in his draft year because of his great skating ability, size, and high upside. Pavelski has less going for him physically, and is completely different.

As for Pavs getting offers…

Who was the last player to get a significant, 4 mil + offer sheet? Mike Green never got one. Kessel never got one. In fact besides Penner I can’t think of anyone getting one. They don’t happen, especially when a team has to give up a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round draft pick to do it. Again I find myself explaining the obvious to people who don’t follow or understand hockey to the extent that I do. Stop arguing with what I’m saying and just take it in. It’s the truth, period. It’s fact. More talented players have come and gone without getting offer sheets, not to mention 4 mil + ones. Look at the guys getting 5 mil per year via UFA – Plekanec, Cammalleri, to name a few. Those are better players than Pavelski, who are UFA’s, so why would an inferior player, as an RFA, get 5 mil?

PoeticAppreciation

Is the NHL awards show still going on? (Thanks for the link!).

If it is… then I nominate Jeremy6411111 for best/funniest blog site poster. His #65 post really made me laugh, this is great entertainment. And he’s not a one-timer by proof of coming back in his (not quite as good) post #68.

Jeremy6411111, don’t take this as an insult. I just thought the transition from the other posters to you was quite a big one. And the way you stood up and grabbed the podium was…inspiring.

hinner until a completely bald head is visible, and then the other is the receding hair lines ofwhich begins at the front of the hairline then graduallyshifts it’s way in the opposite direction. Now there seems to be all kinds of products and solutions seen inthe news to fix this kind of majorprobl